Full House

A full house forms when you have 3 cards of one rank + 2 cards of another rank. For example: three Queens and two Eights. The official notation is "Queens full of Eights".

A full house shows up about once in every 693 five-card hands and roughly one in 37 seven-card Hold'em hands, which makes it common enough to be the hand that decides a lot of big pots. It is also the most frequent losing "monster": a full house is strong enough that players commit their stack with it and weak enough that a bigger full house genuinely exists.

A full house is a classic value hand. You can usually build a big pot without fear. Note: if the board is paired, an opponent may have quads. If your full house is small (trips + low pair), be cautious against aggressive raises.

The whole hand hinges on which part of your full house came from the board. Trips from the board plus your pocket pair is the most vulnerable version — anyone else with a pocket pair above yours has the same shape and beats you. A set that fills up with a paired turn or river is the strong version, because you hold the top part and only the exact overpair beats you. Bet big with the strong version; with the vulnerable one, be willing to call rather than raise on the river when a passive opponent suddenly leads out. On paired boards, sizing large is right precisely because so many opponents hold a hand they cannot fold.

Treating every full house as the nuts. When the board itself is paired, "full house" describes a whole family of hands and yours may be the small one. The tell to respect is the passive opponent who suddenly raises the river on a paired board: that line almost never comes from a bluff.

Hands that beat Full House:

• Royal Flush
• Straight Flush
• Four of a Kind

Hands beaten by Full House:

• Flush
• Straight
• Three of a Kind
• Two Pair
• Pair
• High Card